PERTHDilapidation reports: your baseline before the works next door
Dilapidation reports in Perth: the pre-construction condition record that protects you when neighbouring demolition or excavation risks damaging your home
When the block next door becomes a building site, your house is at risk in a way you cannot control, and the burden of proving any damage was caused by the works falls on you. A dilapidation report is how you protect yourself: an independent record of your property's condition before the work starts, so that anything new can be attributed to it.
What a dilapidation report is
A dilapidation report — also called a pre-construction condition report or adjoining property survey — is a detailed, photographic record of the existing condition of a property before nearby construction, demolition or excavation begins. It documents the cracks, movement, surface finishes and site features as they are on the day, creating an independent baseline. If damage appears later, the report shows what was already there and what was not.
It is carried out as a building inspection under the Australian Standards for inspection of buildings, and it covers the interior and exterior surfaces, fences, driveways, retaining walls, outbuildings, and often council assets like kerbs and footpaths.
Why the baseline matters so much
Here is the problem it solves. Heavy machinery, excavation, piling and demolition next door can genuinely damage your home — shifting foundations, cracked walls, deflected brickwork, damaged driveways and fences, even water entry. In theory the party doing the works is responsible for repairing damage they cause. In practice, you only recover the cost if you can prove they caused it, and without a record of your property's prior condition, a builder can reasonably argue the crack was already there.
A dilapidation report removes that argument. With a dated, photographic before-record, a new crack that appears during the works is demonstrably new. Without one, it is your word against theirs, and the burden of proof is on you.
Who needs one, and when
Two situations, and the report protects a different party in each.
If you are doing the work — a knockdown-rebuild, an extension, deep excavation, or a demolition near a boundary — a dilapidation report on the neighbouring properties protects you, by recording their pre-existing defects so they cannot later be blamed on your project. In fast-growing Perth, with constant knockdown-rebuilds through the established suburbs, this is increasingly routine.
If a neighbour is doing the work, you do not have to be the builder to commission a report. As the adjoining owner you can obtain your own dilapidation report before their work starts, to protect your position if their excavation or demolition damages your home. It is one of the smartest cheap insurances a homeowner can buy when a major project is about to start next door.
The situations that most warrant one
The risk is highest, and a report most worth having, where the works involve demolition, piling, deep excavation, basement construction, underpinning, or construction close to a shared boundary. These are exactly the scenarios where damage is both more likely and, without a baseline, hardest to date. An older home near a new development is particularly exposed, because it has less tolerance for ground movement and vibration.
How we help
A dilapidation report is a specialised property inspection, carried out and documented so it stands up if a dispute arises later. We survey and photograph the property's condition thoroughly before the nearby work commences, so you have an independent record to rely on. Where it comes to a claim, that documentation is the difference between a straightforward resolution and an expensive, unwinnable argument — and if a dispute does escalate, it is the kind of evidence that supports an expert witness report.
The dispute a baseline record prevents
The whole value of a dilapidation report is in a single scenario it is designed to head off. Building work starts next door, an excavation, a demolition, piling for a new build hard against the boundary, and some weeks later a crack appears in your wall, or your driveway develops a step, or a cornice starts to separate. You are certain the work caused it. The party doing the work is equally certain the damage was already there, and points out that your house is decades old and cracks are what old houses do. Without an objective record of the condition of your property before their work began, that disagreement has no referee, and it usually resolves in favour of whoever is not holding the evidence, which is generally not the homeowner.
A dilapidation report is that referee. Prepared before the neighbouring work starts, it is a dated, photographed record of exactly what your property looked like beforehand, existing cracks and all, with the cracks measured. If new damage appears, the comparison is objective rather than argumentative: the damage that is in the after but not the before is new, and the timing points at the works next door. The report does not win the argument by being persuasive; it removes the argument by replacing opinion with a documented baseline.
Why the timing is not negotiable
The one thing that cannot be compromised on a dilapidation report is when it is done. It has to be prepared before the neighbouring work begins, because its entire function is to establish the "before". A report commissioned after the excavator has already been on site cannot separate pre-existing damage from new damage, which is the one thing it exists to do, and at that point it is close to worthless. The moment you know significant works are planned next door, whether you are the party building or the neighbour living beside it, is the moment to arrange the report. Once the first machine arrives, the window has closed and it cannot be reopened.
This is worth stressing because the need for a dilapidation report often becomes obvious only once damage has appeared, which is exactly too late. The homeowner who watches a demolition next door without a second thought, and only starts worrying when their own wall cracks, has missed the chance to protect themselves. The discipline the report requires is to act on the prospect of neighbouring work rather than on its consequences, which means treating the sight of a development application or a demolition notice next door as the prompt, not the first crack.
Perth's older stock is the most exposed
The properties that most need a dilapidation baseline are the older ones, and Perth has a great deal of older, movement-sensitive stock in exactly the established suburbs where knockdown-rebuilds and subdivisions are most common. A double-brick house from the sixties or seventies has far less tolerance for the ground movement and vibration that demolition, excavation, and piling produce than a modern articulated build. It has fewer or no articulation joints, its footings were designed for a quieter neighbour, and its brickwork and plaster have settled into an equilibrium that heavy works next door can disturb. The same excavation that a new house beside it shrugs off can put stepped cracking through its walls.
This is why, in Perth's leafy established suburbs, the adjoining owner often has as much reason to commission a dilapidation report as the developer does. As blocks are subdivided and developers build down as well as up, the older house next door is the vulnerable party, and a baseline record is cheap insurance against a problem that is genuinely more likely to land on an older home. Where the neighbouring work involves demolition, deep excavation, basement construction, or piling, the case for a baseline is strongest, because those are the activities that transmit real vibration and cause real ground movement, and they are increasingly the norm rather than the exception.
Common questions
What is a dilapidation report?
A detailed photographic record of a property's condition before nearby construction, demolition or excavation begins. It creates an independent baseline so any new damage can be identified and attributed to the works.
Do I need a dilapidation report if my neighbour is building?
You can commission one as the adjoining owner — you don't have to be the builder. It protects your position if their excavation or demolition damages your home, by proving what condition your property was in beforehand.
When is a dilapidation report most important?
Where the nearby works involve demolition, piling, deep excavation, basement construction, underpinning, or construction close to a shared boundary — the situations where damage is both more likely and hardest to date without a baseline.
This comes up on every dilapidation report we carry out.
Read next: reactive-clay footing movement and retaining walls: WA's 500mm rule catches more than owners expect.
Sources
Read rather than recalled. Summarised here; the documents themselves are Crown copyright and are linked rather than reproduced.